Smart home as Raspberry Pi Domoticz

Table of Contents:

1 Domoticz – open source smart home system
2 Raspberry Pi – installation of Domoticz and first configuration steps
3 Connecting hardware to the Raspberry Pi

Reading time: 3 min.

Building automation systems are slowly becoming more and more popular, and many users cannot imagine their daily lives without them. However, a large group of people are under the misconception that a smart home has to involve an investment of considerable financial resources, associated with the purchase of a central controller, numerous sensors and actuators (dedicated to a particular system of a given manufacturer), and finally – with a rather invasive installation. If the project is carried out at the time of construction or general renovation, the last of the problems can still be minimized, but it’s worse if the idea of launching a building automation system is crystallized soon after the premises are given over for use or the flat is routinely refreshed.

However, it turns out that even in such a case it is possible to add a certain amount of “intelligence” to the building – One of the most interesting solutions is to create your own installation, using a Raspberry Pi minicomputer, Domoticz (a special software package for this purpose) and a handful of sensors and additional hardware modules.

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Domoticz – open source smart home system

Domoticz is one of the numerous, very extensive projects offered under the OpenSource licence, in this case designed to “power” a building automation system. Although the software itself is available for Windows, MacOS and Unix, as well as for small single board minicomputers, it offers the greatest possibilities precisely in combination with the latter. Importantly, Domoticz can be installed on Raspberry Pi starting from the second generation (Raspberry Pi 2 Model B), although of course, higher generation models (3 and 4) provide better performance and greater connectivity to computer networks – thanks to native Bluetooth support and dual-band WiFi.

However, the attractiveness of the Domoticz environment is not only based on the open, community-based genesis of the software, but also on the strong support for a rich set of devices and modules – many of which can only be used with a Raspberry Pi (e.g. 1-Wire sensors connected directly to the Raspberry’s GPIO connector), which is another argument for choosing this platform as the basis for building a smart home.

Raspberry Pi – installation of Domoticz and first configuration steps

Building a Raspberry-based smart home is all about a few steps, the first of which is obviously installing Domoticz on your Raspberry Pi. The installation process itself is trivial, as it consists of calling the curl -sSL install.domoticz.com | sudo bash command in a terminal, which downloads the installation files and calls an automatic script that guides you through the process of basic environment configuration.

It is important to assign a fixed IP address for the minicomputer – this can be done in the operating system settings or directly in the router, using administrative access (usually present at a default address such as 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1). You also need to select the type of protocol (HTTP or encrypted HTTPS), the port number of the HTTP(S) server, and confirm the default installation folder for Domoticz files or choose a non-standard location.

In the application settings, available after logging in to the already installed system, you should also set your approximate geographical location and, if you intend to eventually use this facility, also the email parameters used to send notifications about events detected by the system.

Connecting hardware to the Raspberry Pi

Once all the necessary configuration is done, you can move on to connecting peripherals. The Raspberry Pi version of Domoticz natively supports a number of devices, including numerous wireless communication modules (RFXCOM, Z-Wave), energy meters, and even commercially available weather stations, air quality sensors and thermostats. The system also has pre-installed drivers to support GPIO lines, the BMP085 sensor, 1-Wire thermometers and even the Philips Hue smart lighting system.

What is very important, the user is not only able to connect the necessary devices to the system, but also to freely configure the information board, available after logging in to the minicomputer – in the form of clear, intuitive “blocks” Domoticz will display the status of sensors and other useful information, while the built-in graphic functions will allow to generate aesthetic graphs of the set parameters in a specified time window.

Maciej Figiel

Versatile, he is eager to take on challenges because he thinks it is the fastest way to progress. He values contact with nature and an active rest. Automotive and new technologies enthusiast.

Maciej Figiel

Versatile, he is eager to take on challenges because he thinks it is the fastest way to progress. He values contact with nature and an active rest. Automotive and new technologies enthusiast.